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Easy out to liberty park and around. Did a few murphys on the way back. Feeling great right now. 1:06:57

Ran the last two miles of the desnews half from S Temple and 200 E. After the drop to 100 S, its pretty much flat as a pancake. The finish line was marked and though it shows on their website as halfway between 600 E and Green St, the finish was dead in the middle of Green St, about 650 E. According to the course tool, that's pretty spot on distance wise. It looks like the finish for all the races and they all vary a bit on their website.

Day off. Did a warm-up on the stationary bike and then some stretching and core stuff. 

AM

Easy to west high and then 8 laps and 20ish meters in 11:55 then back home.

Excited for tomorrow. Goal is to break 1:15. Plan is to stay in the 5:30s for as long as possible and get those last two in sub 6.

Lunch

Stationary bike for 10 minutes then a stretching, core and hip strength routine. 60 minutes total.

Splits: 5:31, 5:27, 5:37, 5:30, 5:38, 5:31, 5:38, 5:54, 5:33, 5:55, 5:54, 6:05, 6:23, 50 (6:03 pace for .14 according to garmin).

I signed up for this race last Saturday because I was feeling less than enthralled with the Timp Half as a St. George prep race. I did a few workouts that caused me to decide to shoot for 5:30s for the downhill and hold it together on the flats, hopefully sub 6. 

I woke up at 3:25 and was able to accomplish my morning routine without any complications. I recognized Ben Van Beekum as I was waiting in line for the Honey Bucket and met up with he and Riley after I finished. Sat around for a while then warmed up two miles going up the canyon road and back. Felt good and the temperature was very nice. Still cool and very little wind.

I got to the start and said hi to a few bloggers and met Brandon Dase. I learned that he was shooting for a sub 75 like me and Ben. It started pretty much on time and we were off. We kept the first mile under control as many darted out. After about 3 or 4, Ben separated and I worked with Brandon for a while. I learned later he had a bad side stitch and I lost him right after the turn onto Foothill.

No pain to this point but I was in new territory as far as speed and distance so I wasn't sure how I would hold up. My pace slowed to the low 6s for the flat on Foothill leading to 500 S which I took as a bad sign for the last 2 miles. Mile 8 on 500 S had some good downhill and I restored pace a bit but slowed again on the flat on 1300 E again to low 6s. Legs were feeling tired but no pain.

For the turn onto S Temple, I perked up my form and sped up a bit because I knew my boss would be looking for me at about 1050 E. He got up a bit early to cheer me on. I told him to look for me from 6:55-6:57 and there I was in the 6:55 time frame. I maintained sub 6 pace on S Temple but slowed from 5:30s to 5:50s. After the turn onto 200 E and the initial downhill, I struggled to keep low 6 pace. Then the turn east on 900 S caused a bit more slow down to the 6:20s. A 10ker challenged me at the finish line, so that was the last bit of excitement I experienced.

A very aided PR with 1600 feet of drop, but good prep for St. George. A 3:37 improvement. Met up with Fritz, Kevin and Collin and ran the woodchips. We found Matt Poulsen and Mike Nelson not too far along and they joined for the rest. On the second lap, we lost a couple and added Brandon and a couple others. 2.9 cool down. 

Then a couple miles walking and watching the parade with my brother and son. Then Eggs in the City with their meat lovers hash with eggs. A nice day thus far. 

Will still run Timp. I have no idea what to expect. We'll see how I feel Friday. 

Legs are a bit sore but not too bad. I ran on the treadmill just in case. Wanted about 6 in 45 and ended up doing 6.5 in 44:20. 1.5 at 7:30 pace, 1.5 at 6:58 pace, 2 at 6:27 pace and then 4x20 second strides at 5:00 pace and a cool down. All flat. Felt strong throughout.

If I was a betting man, I would put me in the 1:18 range for Saturday's race but I would like to beat those odds. 

5 easy. Went to the U track at 11 and ran four straightaways. Then 2x400 in 81 and 75 seconds. 40:07 total for the run.

Legs are feeling good. They got a lot worse yesterday and were sore and achy at the Flaming Lips concert and walking around downtown. I was kind of afraid I wouldn't run well, but they perked up substantially this morning. 

Everything about this race was kind of surreal. I spoiled it by running Des News on Wednesday and I had no idea what to do with myself. I recovered well from Des News but I didn't want to push my luck. James - runmehappy - was hoping for some pacing help so I decided it would be a good idea to run some goal marathon pace and see how it felt. I just had to convince him to go out that fast. With 1400 feet of drop in the first 8 and only 90 in the last 5.1, this is set up to blaze down the canyon. So the deal was 6:05-6:10 for the first 8 and then every man for himself.

We met John Hille from the blog at the start and he was shooting for something in the 1:20-1:25 range and decided to join our little pace group. Unfortunately, I left my Garmin at my friend's house in Orem so I had to use runkeeper which is somewhat inaccurate - and with the canyons, even more so. We avoided going out too fast and kept the miles pretty steady. I think we were averaging about 6:07-6:08 after exiting the canyon, hitting mile 8 on the parkway. I did mile 9 in 5:50 or so and then decided to ease off because I didn't want to go hard enough to require any recovery. I ended up averaging 6:09 for the run and feeling strong and fresh at the end. Encouraging to feel that good at goal marathon pace.

Big congratulations to James and John on their PRs today.

The race was well organized until the last few miles. A runner turned left at a crosswalk and I followed him but the cop said "He's the only guy who's turned left." So I turned back after a small deviation and the other guy did after a bit longer of a deviation. I let him catch up to me and I just followed him in. At the Alpine Highway, there was no one and no sign telling us to go under the highway so we went above it. On the cool down, we saw hundreds of runners doing the same with traffic stalled and everyone confused. Apparently the guy that was supposed to direct the runners didn't show up and they didn't post any signs to tell us where to go. Then the awards ceremony was excruciating. I usually don't stick around for these, but they were giving out some stuff. It took a good 45 minutes to get to the male 35-39 category with a slow delivery and numerous interruptions.

Also, I did none of my usual pre-race routine. I ate indian food and chicken wings the night before and didn't go sleep until 11. I got a banana, cliff bar and rockstar java (b/c there was no hot coffee) at the convenience store across from Lone Peak and didn't finish eating until later than usual. Luckily no GI issues though.

A nice down week of just over 60 miles for me. Time to get back to the grind.